As I've sagely noted, the introduction of a firearm into any conflict, no matter how small or trivial, immediately escalates that conflict exponentially. And since most gunowners have neither the skill or temperment to handle firearms safely--the results are often tragic.

Jade, please show facts to back up this "most gunowners" claim, if you can. There are some 80 million of us, and far, far less than that number in gun injuries and deaths each year. There are 30K or so gun deaths a year (we'll even include the suicides for simplicity), and add in a generous estimation of gun injuries to make that figure 500K (just to keep the math simple). That means that the "good guys" outnumber the trouble makers by a 160:1 margin, even with generous rounding in your favor. Hardly sounds like "most gunowners have neither the skill or temperment to handle firearms safely" now does it? Your argumentative skills miss the point, "per usual."

Jade, please show facts to back up this "most gunowners" claim, if you can.

Colin, I can tell you haven't been around here very long. JadeGold (aka Guy Cabot) says this type of shit all the time here. Don't bother prodding for evidence. You won't get it. He's a sociopath and just says things like that for kicks.

Colin: It's pretty easy to establish the fact most gunowners are unsafe and have temperments unsuitable to safe use of a butter knife, let alone gun ownership.

It's all fine and dandy to say there are 345 gazillion gunowners and only 20 bazillion gun deaths. But such a metric misses the mark.

In truth, we measure safety (or non-safety) by whether or not a product's intended purpose is being satisfied--or not.

Hunting, as we all know, has been declining for years. Thus, the primary stated reason for owning a gun is for self-defense.

Now, if we knew an airline would experience crashes on one out of every 10 flights (10%)--there aren't too many people who would call that airline safe.

Yet, study after study shows you are far more likely to be homicide victim if you own a gun. You are also far more likely to use a gun against a family member, intimate acquaintance or neighbor than some unknown assailant.

Further compounding this is the fact that there are approx. 250 justifiable homicides (from all causes, not just guns) in the US annually. Yet, there are far more gun accident deaths, gun homicides, etc.

Nobody would put themselves or their family on an aircraft where there exists a 10% chance of crashing. Yet, gunloons believe guns for self-protection are safe despite the fact it is far more likely to be used against themselves or family members than some unknown criminal.

The first time I ever saw some dewds from another high school at a football game that really knew how to fight and gang up and hurt people, it scared the shit outta me. Not that I really thought anybody was gonna die or really get hurt all that bad. Just to see that willingness to inflict bodily harm. Death. mutilation. No regard for the life of the other person.

Guy needs his diaper changed again, because the number of hunting licenses issued in almost every state, every year has been going up, not down.

That means more hunters in the field, every year, and more hunters spending more time in the field filling multiple tags. Yet, hunting accidents have declined dramatically over the last two decades. This is generally attributed to hunter safety courses, or education, which Jade and his band of merry fools are against.

"It's pretty easy to establish the fact most gunowners are unsafe and have temperments unsuitable to safe use of a butter knife, let alone gun ownership."

Yet you still haven't established anything, while I, using actual facts, just established the exact opposite. I found that at most one in 320 gun owners misuses a firearm, and that figure assumes that all firearm-related deaths and injuries are caused by law-abiding gun owners (not suicides by a family member, or gang violence or illegally owned firearms). You, on the other hand, just dodged the issue and then pulled some random numbers out of your ass to try to argue some other fact entirely. Talk about trickery and misdirection...

The point of the post was not about the guy's qualifications to own a gun but the fact that it went off when dropped.

Kevin said, "Some guy who isn't allowed to own firearms breaks the law and gets one anyway, carries it around without a holster and kills someone.

Hmm, no. Not so good a point for you after all..."

Actually, Kevin, this does support my position perfectly. That particular gun was manufactured legally and delivered to some FFL guy somewhere in the States. After that somehow it ended up in the hands of a non-qualified person who had the misfortune of dropping it, just like a lot of you qualified guys do.

You want so desperately to delineate between your legitimate gun owners and your non-legitimate ones, but the first group is feeding the second. You are attached as if with an umbilical cord.

And as an impartial observer, I hold you (all of you legitimate gun owners) responsible. The criminals are already criminals. Of course the laws are not going to deter them. That's why you (plural) need to be regulated.

Besides, we want the same goal (I suspect, at least), less violent crime.Our disagreement comes down to this; you don't seem to care about the rights of people that are not committing crime. You time and time again blame those who have nothing to do with the crime, it just doesn't make sense.

Why not talk about how the millions of NICS rejections of prohibited persons never results in an arrest (yet it's a crime) or how few straw purchasers are convicted?

"Of course the laws are not going to deter them. That's why you (plural) need to be regulated."

And that is why we resist your efforts. Because your laws are not attempting to deal with the root cause of the problem, the criminals themselves. Instead you insist that some legimitate gun owners must be the cause of crime, and go after them.

Oddly, the Innocent Victim of a gun going off by itself (AKA multiple felon shooter) was convicted 15 years ago of "accidentally" killing a friend with a gun... http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/10/suspect_in_harrisburg_shooting.html

Kevin H. said, "Our disagreement comes down to this; you don't seem to care about the rights of people that are not committing crime. You time and time again blame those who have nothing to do with the crime, it just doesn't make sense."

First of all, I do care, but I don't see the 2nd Amendment like you do. So, the rights that you think I don't care about are probably not the same for me as they are for you. But, I assure I do care.

And yes I do blame gun owners in the sense that your fighting and lobbying and arguing for lax or non-existent gun laws is partly to blame for the gun violence in the country. If gun control folks had their way, I'm talking about reasonable gun control folks, 90% of you guys would still have all the guns you have now, but crime would plummet.

Crime will not plummet because you took away a tool. Crime will plummet when you jail the criminals for long periods of time, with no early release for good behavior. Good behavior is expected, and it was the lack of such that landed them in jail in the first place.